IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/sajeco/v76y2008i2p314-315.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Impact On Economic Growth Of Differential Population Growth In An Economy With High Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • William Nordhaus

Abstract

The economic growth of South Africa has been disappointing over the last quarter century. This note addresses a conceptual problem that arises because of composition effects. Two important features of the South African economy are, first, its extreme inequality (primarily between the white population and the African population). Additionally, the African population has been growing rapidly, while the white population has experienced a declining share. This note derives an explicit equation for the impact of inequality and population‐growth differences on the growth of per capita GDP. It shows that the combination of divergent population growth and high inequality can lead to an apparent drag on measured economic growth even though the components, and a more adequate measure of economic welfare, are growing at a healthy rate.

Suggested Citation

  • William Nordhaus, 2008. "Impact On Economic Growth Of Differential Population Growth In An Economy With High Inequality," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 76(2), pages 314-315, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:sajeco:v:76:y:2008:i:2:p:314-315
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1813-6982.2008.00172.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1813-6982.2008.00172.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1813-6982.2008.00172.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:sajeco:v:76:y:2008:i:2:p:314-315. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/essaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.